


Eating Habits

by frozenCinders



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Gen, uncle braig cinematic universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2020-01-12 09:57:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18444212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frozenCinders/pseuds/frozenCinders
Summary: Between Braig and Vanitas, one would think the so-called uncle figure would be the one who cooks for them. It is not.





	Eating Habits

Since he's lived alone for longer than he cares to remember, Braig has had nobody around to chastise his eating habits. He's had nary a soul to tell him "no" when he orders takeout for the 6th time that week, on a _Tuesday_ , even though he lives in the middle of nowhere and it never fails to arrive cold. His idea of cooking is just microwaving said takeout and occasionally frying an egg.

Now that he has a weird nephew... Braig _still_  doesn't have anyone complaining, actually. It takes him a little while of seeing them in someone else to realize that his habits are, in fact, quite bad. So, Braig starts picking up real food and bothers Vanitas to learn how to cook. He's reluctant at first, but Braig only needs to bust out a cookbook and point at some pictures to convince him.

Turns out, Vanitas is great at following instructions when he actually cares to, and he's even better at improvising. Since his cooking is better than reheated takeout, Braig has Vanitas cook dinner almost every night.

"Why do _I_  have to be the one to cook all the time?" he complains one day. "You're the uncle around here."

"You kiddin'? Where's it say uncles cook, huh?"

"You're just a lazy bum."

"Wow! The unappreciation!"

"Is that a word?"

"You just made me invent it with how unappreciative you're being. You cooking tonight or not? Because I can and will order a pizza."

That same conversation more or less happens whenever Vanitas isn't in the mood to cook: Vanitas griping that Braig should be the one cooking, Braig pretending to be offended and offering junk food as an out, and Vanitas silently accepting the offer. Braig thinks he's quiet about it because he's mad he didn't win the argument. Every time.

Aside from the cooking situation, it is essentially eternally Halloween at Braig's residence in that he has bowls of candy just lying around at all times. The decor isn't spooky as much as it is outright questionable; mismatched and making no sense whatsoever because Braig just decorates with whatever he thinks is funny. That did end up with his front door having a welcome mat that says "come back with a warrant," a mug that says "impeached from position as #1 dad," a painting of a cat with completely misaligned eyes and no mouth, among other things. Vanitas has never once questioned any of it.

In fact, there have been a couple times where Vanitas would sneak off during trips to the store and come back with something that makes Braig crack up on the spot, which he then adds to his terrible hell house. The most recent time, it was a candle that said "Shit Show - Infused With: Chaos" and Braig now keeps it on the end table next to the living room sofa.

Today is another lazy afternoon of Braig dozing on the couch while Vanitas just does whatever. He was playing some platformer for a while and Braig would occasionally pipe up with "shoot that guy" whenever Vanitas encountered an enemy, despite repeatedly being told that there are no weapons in the game. Now, he hears clanking in the kitchen and figures he won't have to call for takeout tonight.

There's a lot more noise than usual, and it takes longer as well. Braig hardly thinks anything of it and closes his eyes again to return to napping. The next time he opens them, the house has gone quiet save for soft footsteps.

"Dinner ready?" Braig mumbles, rolling off the couch and onto the floor. He barely misses the coffee table and just lies there for a minute in less pain than he could have been in before slowly rising to his feet.

The dining table is visible from where he's standing, and he can tell it's set. When he reaches the table, it pings as odd to him that seared chicken and roasted potatoes took _that_  long to cook, but he shrugs it off as his perception of time being messed up from dozing. Vanitas is awfully quiet, though, and looks troubled by something.

"What's up, kiddo?" Braig asks between bites. Vanitas knows how good his cooking is by now, so he foregoes the compliments.

"Uh..." he starts, putting the fork he's barely used down to rest both hands in his lap. "I don't know when my birthday is."

"Oh." He takes another bite while he tries to figure out if Vanitas is getting at anything.

"Would it be weird to just decide when it is?" he asks, looking at Braig now.

"... If you don't know, then what else can you do?"

Vanitas stands from the table and walks back into the kitchen. He takes a little while to come back, but he has a cake pan in his hands when he does. He sets it at the middle of the table.

"Baked yourself a cake, huh?" Braig asks the obvious, more just to acknowledge what he's seeing than anything else. Maybe it's the absolute silence and dim lighting of the house at the moment that makes it seem sad, somehow.

He clears his throat and stands.

"Well, shit. If you would have told me, I'd've picked up some birthday candles. Want me to just light random fires on it instead?"

Vanitas snorts at that, pulling the cake away from Braig and pretending to be defensive of it.

"I don't need any of that kid stuff. I just wanted some cake," he says. He moves to open the tin, but Braig leans forward and slides it towards himself.

"Ah-ah, not before you finish your dinner, you won't."

Vanitas pulls it back his way.

"You're not my dad," he taunts.

"I'm the daddest uncle you're gonna get, kid!"

Vanitas laughs, and Braig snatches the whole tin from the table while he's distracted.

"Dinner first," he reiterates. "Then you can eat the whole cake for all I care."

It doesn't take longer than five minutes for Vanitas to finish his plate, and Braig has to laugh. He gets up just to find the remote and put on some background noise, but Vanitas follows him to the couch and sets an extra plate of cake on the coffee table for him. Now that he's seeing a slice, he can tell it's chocolate cake, rather than just seeing the white mess of way too much frosting smothered on top.

They watch the latter half of an episode of some sitcom while they eat. He notices a faint smile on Vanitas's face that doesn't fade even as Braig sends him to bed an hour later.

Once he's alone, something Xehanort told him about Vanitas echoes vaguely in his mind. Something about how his very existence is heinous and that he can know only misery. Braig wonders when he got so good at accomplishing the impossible.

**Author's Note:**

> reminder that the only sustenance my body is capable of processing is uncle braig content and fic comments


End file.
